The Best Lemonade

You know we’re living very hot days these days in Turkey. And the best way to feel refreshed is having some cold drinks. Otherwise we should keep taking shower all day. I know no drink can substitute water to remove our thirst, but we need something beyond this in this season. I think refreshment is the right word to describe what we need these days. And a kind of cold drink is the best remedy for this.

Lemonade is always on top of my list when I want some refreshing, but my husband’s favorite was totally different. Do you have any idea what it was? Let me give a clue. It is dark in color. Is it enough to guess? No? Another clue: Millions of people drink it around the world although experts have millions of warnings about it. Can you guess it now? Right, he was addicted to coke when we first met. I couldn’t believe when he told me that he drank two liters of coke a day. Two big liters! Whenever we went to a Turkish fast food restaurant, I would order ayran(my second favorite) whereas he would order coke and our arguement would start. It was the early time of our relationship and I started to think that it would be hard to get on well with him. Yes, just because of his coke addiction. You may find it nonsense, but it was important for me. I made a researh on the net and found lots of harms of coke. To begin with, it’s an artificial drink, it has lots of chemicals in it. It is an addictive drink because of the amount of caffeine it contains. You may find yourself at the hospital’s emergency room at a night with a heavy stomach ache or you may have to visit the dentist more often when you drink too much coke. You may also be faced with osteoporosis (bone loss) at older ages. Aren’t these enough to avoid this tempting but killing drink? No matter how much I warned him, he kept drinking it. I thought that the more I talked on this issue, the more attractive it became for him, so I decided not to talk for some time. However, as you can guess, I didn’t give up. Meanwhile I was thinking of a way to make him quit coke. I must also admit that he started to struggle with coke as we were getting closer. I understood that talking or continually warning was not the right way. Then one day, I made this lemonade for him and that day is the starting point of his coke- free life. Luckily, this happened before we married, I mean it didn’t last so long. I wouldn’t make it so often before, but since I saw him drinking it with a great enjoyment, lemonade has got its permanent place in our refrigerator.

Start with grating the lemons, but be careful, you should grate just the yellow part, when you reach its white, stop grating or your lemonade tastes bitter. Then squeeze the lemons, you must get a cup of lemon juice. If 5 lemon is not enough for it, you can add one or two lemons.

Put lemon juice and grated lemon shell in a big jar. Add sugar and ginger powder in it. Pour 5 cups hot water and stir until the sugar melts. Cover the jar and let it rest. When it reaches the right temperature to get in the refrigerator (not too hot, but warm), wait it in the refrigerator for about 3 hours. Then take it out and transfer it into a carafe with a strainer. Put a few leaves of mint into this carafe and it is ready to serve.

I suggest a large and tall glass for this. Put some ice cubes in the glass, then place mint leaves on them. Pour lemonade and put mint leaves on the top. You may also add two very thin lemon slices as a decoration.

Note: Fresh mint leaves and ginger powder are so important here, they absolutely add more refreshment besides their wonderful taste and benefits for health.

You see how it’s so easy to prepare a totally natural cold drink.

Mr. Lemon The Ice Cream Vendor

Do you think just the humans swelter in summer? Fruits and vegetables need refreshment as well. They usually prefer ice cream to feel some coolness. Mr. Lemon is the most famous ice cream vendor in their town. Although it seems they go there to buy ice cream, they are looking for something different indeed. They know that Mr. Lemon is also selling lemonade underhand. He says that it is such a priceless drink that he doesn’t want to sell it to everyone. One must be a close friend of him to have a small glass of icy lemonade. (drawing by mom)

Comments

Ah, love the story with you and your husband. Sounds similar to mine, although it was in reverse. I was going to fry my future husband an egg and I got out the butter, and he was just aghast that I did not use olive oil for this sort of thing. His comment, “That’s ok, you’re from Minnesota, you don’t know better.” Men!

Your lemonade sounds so refreshing with the addition of ginger. I love adding different ingredients to mine as well.

I also learned something today, I’m guessing, pipette for you is what we call a straw, and yes, I definitely want a pipette for that lovely looking drink!

Oyster- I agree on butter, I can’t think of frying egg with olive oil!

A big thank you for telling that you call it ‘straw’. We call it ‘pipet’ in Turkish, I looked up to dictionary and its English translation was ‘pipette’, but not straw. After your comment, I corrected it as ‘straw’ in the picture to avoid any misunderstanding.

I like your recipe. I would use a bit fresh ginger instead, but it is great – especially with the lemon zest.

Though I am also one of those coke addicts [only Coca Cola though]. I know, how unhealthy it is – however there is quite less of biased information in the web.

E.g. Coke doesn’t contain any artificial substances [except in most markets HFCS].
I do have problems with my stomach [heavy heartburn] though get more problems, if I drink a home made lemonade or a citrus juice, than if I drink even more coke.
Funny!